If i give out my privatekey does that mean anyone can access my wallet at any time?

Yes. It's called a private key for a reason.

Well, strictly speaking, they can't access your wallet, but they can access the money that belongs to your private key. A wallet is a collection of private keys and other stuff that can be maintained client-side, such as "accounts".

Security needs to be brought to the average joe for bitcoins to reach its potential. This means that always booting from a live CD or flash isn't really scalable to the masses. It needs to run on Android, iPhone and, yes, Windows.

I think we need to think about how we can create a secure sandbox environment in any environment, or leverage sandboxing currently available. This may mean doing encryption on top of encryption.

This is not to say there are not challenges. The fundamental challenge is how do you handle compromised programs running as the same user, and key loggers. But, I think it is simply important to begin the discussion with how to secure bitcoins on platforms that the mainstream will want to use, rather than invent a distro and boot process just for bitcoins -- unless, of course, you're goal is to secure 1000s of them.

I want my secure wallet to be stored down-town any-place under the wing of a respected Town Hall where I'm even required to sign in with biometric, hand print, eye scan, whatever, up to the user (24/7) - protect withdrawals over certain limits.

Place it right near the coffee and donut shop.

If I keel over I want bio-metric access granted to next of kin. Maybe a fork carries my biometric authentication?